Oracle America, Inc.

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

International Business Machines Corporation

Spencer Shepler

Brian L Wong

Richard McDougall

David G Robinson

Gary Yuh Tsao

Son Hung Lam

Ricardo Labiaga

Michael D Kupfer

Frank Dea

Glenn A Colaco

A system and method for emulating the input/output performance of an application. A workload description language is used to produce a small but accurate model of the application, which is flexible enough to emulate the application's performance with varying underlying system configurations or operating parameters. The model describes I/O operations performed by the application, and reflects any dependencies that exist between different application threads or processes. The model is then executed or interpreted with a particular system configuration, and various parameters of the I/O operations may be set at the model's run-time. During execution, the input/output operations described in the model are generated according to the specified parameters, and are performed. The system configuration and/or I/O operation parameters may be altered and the model may be re-run.

System and method for emulating input/output performance of an application

A system and method for ensuring or verifying the integrity of data transmitted between protection domains. When the data is transmitted, it may be received in a different logical configuration (e.g., as a different number of 'chunks'). The receiving domain computes its data integrity metadata (e.g., checksum, CRC, parity) on its form of the data using its protection scheme (e.g., checksum algorithm), and also applies the sending domain's protection scheme to the data as it was received from the sending domain. Similarly, the sending domain applies the receiving domain's protection scheme to compute data integrity metadata on the transmitted data as it appears in the receiving domain. The metadata may be compared to determine whether the data was corrupted during the transfer. Either domain may forward its data integrity metadata to the other, which may store and/or forward it as needed.

System and method for protecting data across protection domain boundaries

A system and method for decreasing the protocol processing incurred by an NFS (Network File System) client, and the network bandwidth consumed, when multiple NFS requests are issued close in time to each other. Requests received close in time to each other within one NFS client are aggregated into a single communication packet, even if they are from different NFS users, processes or applications. The per-request overhead of the NFS requests is thus avoided, and multiple streams of requests may be merged into one. When a first request is received by the client, it may be delayed for a short time to determine whether any other requests can be sent at the same time. NFS requests may be aggregated on an NFS client from multiple applications, processes, users or other entities. An NFS client may include an aggregator or other mechanism for performing the aggregation.

System and method for aggregating NFS requests

A system and method for facilitating a consistent point-in-time copy (PITC). A data provider offers access to data by one or more clients. A client issues a PITC request for a set of data to the data provider, or the provider initiates its own request. The data provider instructs one or more clients, particularly clients accessing the set of data, to flush any pending updates involving the files. The clients acknowledge the flush request, flush their data, and notify the data provider when their flushes are complete. Post-consistency updates are deferred (e.g., using a write-aside buffer). If a client fails to acknowledge the flush request or notify of flush completion, the data provider may abort the PITC or continue because the data may not be consistent or consistency may not be assured. If not aborted, the PITC may be marked to indicate that it is incomplete.

System and method for facilitating a consistent point-in time copy

A method for dirty region logging of a file that includes receiving a request to open the file, determining each of a plurality of component files associated with the file, opening each of the plurality of component files, writing to a region of the at least one of the plurality component files, and updating a dirty region log (DRL) associated with the one of the plurality of component files to reflect the write to the region.

Per file dirty region logging

A file is striped across multiple filers, file servers or other devices, to create a sparsely striped multi-component file. Each filer stores one sparse component. In particular, each component physically stores only those stripes allocated to that component. The other stripes are represented as holes. Thus, instead of contiguously packing each component's stripes at the block level, each component is a file having the same logical structure. A component of a sparsely striped multi-component file can be easily converted to a mirror by filling in its holes. Similarly, a mirror can be easily converted to one component of a sparsely striped multi-component file by removing or ignoring it unallocated stripes. In either case, the layout or logical of the component does not need to be reconfigured.

Sparse multi-component files

Improved logging techniques that produce transaction logs are disclosed. The logging techniques are able to consolidate multiple related partial operations performed on a server device into a single log entry in a transaction log. Accordingly, the logging techniques are well suited for logging operations of protocols in which transactions are often completed over multiple operations. The logging techniques are particularly well suited for logging access to NFS file and/or directory resources with respect to a NFS server, even when the NFS operations are performed via Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) to the NFS server.

Method and system for consolidating related partial operations into a transaction log

A frame-address matching function of a network controller is enhanced. In a full power-on mode, the controller performs conventional functions. In the low-power mode, the controller includes frame-address and frame-data matching, as well as pre-determined and programmable autonomous response to network protocol. If a match occurs with respect to the frame destination address or frame data, the system associated with the controller is placed in a wake-up state. If the controller is programmed to perform pattern matching inside the frame data area, upon such match in the frame data area the controller will generate and transmit on the network a simple response packet automatically. Conversely, if a match is not detected, no action is taken. The frame-data patterns are programmable with the capability to mask out certain data fields as desired which are protocol dependent and are substantially protocol dependent.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Spencer Shepler